Debt To Society
by Luke In Blue
Summary: Jumba goes for his routine offplanet community service. SLASH WARNING


Debt To Society

By: Fala "beat their pants off" Tzipori

Written: Summer, 2005  
Fandom: Lilo and Stitch  
Rating: PG  
Genre: General, romance  
Pairing(s): Jumba/Pleakley  
Warnings: Very mild slash/male+male relations, discussion of mature subject matter, an original female character, though with no romantic connections to any characters and no resemblance to myself whatsoever. At least, I hope so. I don't generally consider myself a criminal, nor a druggie, but . . .

Plot: Jumba goes for his routine off-planet community service.

Spoilers: Possible inherent spoilers for the feature film, I suppose.

Thanks and dedications: Yet again, Cousin Sarky/Nastyface rules like Marie Antionette never did. Many thanks to the best beta reader ever.

Disclaimers: The characters in this story are not mine and I am making no profit off of this. I have borrowed them from Disney and will return them by post at great personal expense. Eely Ixflay is mine, but you may use her (as if you'd really want to) if you ask very nicely or bribe me with chocolate.

Story Notes: This was inspired by episode "Shortstuff" in which Lilo asks where Jumba is and Pleakley says that the "convicted evil genius" is off-planet, doing his community service. I wanted to see Jumba doing some good, hard, non-laboratory labour with an implied revelation or two on the side and this fic was born. Enjoy.

Debt To Society

The Council of the Galactic Federation had, as the Grand Councilwoman had said, always been absolute in their rulings. The case of Doctor Jumba Jookiba was no different. It had been an even trade: his freedom for the capture of his killing machine. While he had escaped incarceration, the Grand Councilwoman had said nothing of Jumba's debt to society, a debt that he would be held to even after his relocation to Earth. So, one day every week for the next six months, a high-speed spacecraft was sent to Hawaii to pick him up so that he could fulfill his community service credits.

Every Thursday morning, Jumba would wake up at 6.00 AM and Pleakley would fix him a hearty breakfast, then see him to the door when his parole officer knocked a short while later.

Even after the events surrounding his journey to Earth and his conversion to a quieter existence, Jumba Jookiba was still marked in Federation records as a convicted felon. His parole officer's way of saying "good morning" was to lock his wrists together in Federation-issued handcuffs. He accepted the cold, metallic restraints impassively while Pleakley looked on from the doorway, not daring to speak any more than Jumba might have. The alien-turned-housewife watched the officer lead the former evil genius away. He had once tried to walk with Jumba to the spacecraft, but the parole officer had not allowed it. Jumba himself had said nothing for or against this. He had not said anything at all. Pleakley thought, in retrospect, that Jumba probably would not have appreciated the gesture for all it was worth, anyway.

Once inside the craft, Jumba soon found the earth falling away from him in a rush as he was whisked into space at hyperspeed to begin the day's work.

A high-security prison set on a remote asteroid was the site of his tasks. It was the selfsame prison that he would have been forwarded to were it not for the fateful deal he had struck with the Grand Councilwoman and Agent Pleakley in his temporary holding cell at the Federation headquarters. Little did Jumba know that a handful of metres away, Dr. Jacques-Rupert VonHamsterveil sat in a cell on the westernmost side of the building, discontentedly gnawing at the bones left over from the previous night's meal.

Upon his arrival, Jumba's cuffs were removed and he was given his uniform and three minutes to change into it. This uniform was the very same one he had received when he had been arrested for creating 626. He had only worn it for a few hours before the Grand Councilwoman arrived with Pleakley and gave him the opportunity to take it off for good. It felt strange holding it again, and even moreso when he had actually put it on. The coarse, cheap material settled over him like a ghost, like some part of himself he had left behind long ago.

He was escorted at gunpoint to the building where a line of inmates were queueing out front to receive tools and orders for the day. The east wing of the prison building was to be expanded and a foundation needed digging for the new addition.

Jumba received his shovel, technologically accessorised for breaking the rocky surface of the asteroid, and joined his group. The inmates were grouped according to species and build. The smaller, lighter races were placed round the perimeters. Strong, sturdy types like Jumba were assigned to work in the centre, where the rock layers grew progressively harder to break and the workload was heaviest.

Stationed at his left was a tall Grenarian, a race Jumba had only ever glimpsed once before and in very distant passing. Jumba felt a lurch in the pit of his heart as he studied the armoured flesh and wicked-looking horns of the other alien out of the corner of his leftmost eye. The blunted muzzle projected from a stony, plated face whose eyes were narrow and sharp like splinters of glass. He had four arms.

Jumba shuddered discreetly.

Once everyone was in their designated place and shark-like guards had been posted strategically round the site, work began.

The time difference between the prison asteroid and earth was staggering. Because the asteroid's rotation period was much faster than that of Earth, each day lasted only a few hours. Barely an hour after Jumba's arrival, "morning" on the asteroid had begun to wane, and the prisonside of the asteroid rotated toward the small sun it was orbitting round, bathing the worksite in searing heat.

Burning warmth clung to the sprays of fine dust that were kicked up as the rocky surface of the asteroid was broken, cracked and chipped away. Sweat rolled down Jumba's forehead, attacking his eyes, and he found himself stopping frequently to mop his brow with the back of his hand. The muscles in his arms and shoulders burned and he was panting, open-mouthed like a dog beneath the crushing heat. The Grenarian beside him, on the other hand, showed no signs of exhaustion and continued to drive his shovel into the rock, keeping a consistent pace thrust for thrust. Jumba vaguely wondered if it was even possible for Grenarians to sweat. He doubted it. The specimen beside him was armoured from head to toe, save for the occasional slice of leathery flesh winking out at him from between the lacquer-hard plates.

Night came a little over an hour later. All round the compound, enormous, globular uburnium lamps sputtered to life, defying the stars overhead and playing milky green twilight over the work site. The nights were so short on the asteroid that there was barely any time for the air to cool, but the absence of the sun's oppressive glare offered precious little comfort to the toiling prisoners. It made the arrival of the next sunrise all the more unwelcome as the dark was chased away and the burning afternoon sun crept up on them again.

Somewhere in the haze of dust, heat and fatigue of the asteroid's third rotation, a klaxon blared, announcing their one and only break. As one languorous mass, the workers abandoned their shovels and queued up at the front of the prison to receive small rations of food and water. Jumba was given his share and took it over to an area that seemed to be the designated eating place, wanting to rest while he could. His leg muscles experienced such a rush of relief at finally being able to sit that they spasmed painfully and the world seemed to blur with the sudden imbalance and residual adrenaline. A drink of water was in order and Jumba took it.

As his vision shuddered slowly back into clarity, he thought his eyes were playing tricks on him when he saw the smallish, slender shape just a short distance away. However, he soon realised that he was actually seeing a Plorginarian seated on the ground, small and stalky in a drooping, oversized uniform. The floating spectre of disbelief flipped in his heart before common sense prodded his brain, sharply reminding him that it couldn't possibly be . . .

The Plorginarian turned and Jumba realised that it was a female. Her close-cropped hair had not registered in his mind till now for some reason, but her features and front completed the picture for him. She seemed to notice he was staring and he was jolted from his reverie, snapping his gaze back to his food. However, by the time he'd begun working his teeth against the rock-hard biscuit, she had picked up her own tray and was making her way over to join him.

"You're Jookiba, aren't you?"

Jumba looked up from his tray, his four eyes meeting one.

She smirked upon not receiving an answer. "Oh sorry, _Doctor_ Jookiba. Doctor Jumba Jookiba, lead scientist of Galaxy Defence industries, arrested for misuse of Galactic resources and creating a weapon of mass destruction capable of wiping out half the known universe," she recited, the Plorginarian accent lending her Turor a pattering lilt.

Jumba blinked, surprised. "You know me?" he queried, suddenly realising how very rusty his own Turor had become in such a short time.

She laughed. "You're practically famous round here! When it first happened, they couldn't stop talking about the bigwig scientist that was supposed to come here, but ended up making a getaway to some backward little planet with a Plorg!" She grinned slyly. "I'd wager you're pretty well-known on my home planet, too, come to think of it."

A surge of pride strangled by still-developing conscience stuttered in Jumba's heart. He smiled, just a little. "The Plorg, did you know him? His name is Wendy. Wendy Pleakley."

"Is?" Her brow, smeared with rock dust, rose to meet her hairline. "Does that mean you're still with him?"

Jumba felt a flutter in his ribcage and hoped that it would not rise into a blush. "Yes. We are living together on Earth."

Her eye narrowed slightly and a slivery shadow of suspicion hovered beneath her brow. She seemed to sense that she had touched on something which ran deeper than the surface, but dismissed it without comment. "Well, to answer your question, there's about a million Wendys on Plorginaar. There were four of them in my upper school maths class. Did you say Pleakley? The name sounds familiar but nothing comes to mi- Oh, wait a minute! If it's Pleakley, that'll be Thlayley's kid. Captain Thlayley Pleakley of the East Plorginarian battalion." She nodded with recollection. "He and my father went to Military University together. Good friends, they were. Dad used to talk about him all the time." She turned her attention back to Jumba and extended her hand. "I'm Eely Ixflay."

Jumba awkwardly shook the much smaller, three-fingered hand that could have been Pleakley's own, in darkness, or after a few drinks. "Jumba Jookiba."

"Yer, I know."

There was a brief pause in which she dipped her biscuit in her water to soften it and took a bite, wincing at the unpleasant texture and lack of flavour. "Wanna know what I'm in for?"

Jumba swallowed some water and shrugged.

"Well, dad was in the military, I was into flotsam."

Jumba blinked. Surely she hadn't been arrested for collecting discarded materials from space ships. The Galactic Federation was strict, but it wasn't _that_ strict.

Seeing the confused look on his face, she explained, "Hard drugs. You make it from the acids in comet ice."

"Oh," Jumba said, understanding. He'd abused his own share of substances in the past, but a good lot of them had been of his own invention. "So you are in prison for selling drugs?"

She laughed darkly. "Hardly. You don't get a sixteen year sentence in a high security prison just for dealing. Coupla years back, Dad started wondering why whenever he and the troops moved in for a surprise attack, there was always an enemy squadron waiting for them. Wasn't till a few months later he found out I'd hacked into his computer and was selling info to the other side so I could score more flots."

Jumba raised his eyebrows.

Eely seemed pleased with his reaction, though her grin was humourless. "I was heavy into the stuff, let me tell you. I didn't care how I got it or who I got it from, just that I got my hit." She took a long swig of water and another bite of biscuit. "So, I got the standard twelve year sentence for high treason, but good old Dad had them tack another four years on. He thought it'd help my addiction. Now, even after all this time I've been flots-free, I'd still sell my left heart for a hit." She stared intently down into her water, which winked orange up at her in the light of the sky as afternoon faded into sunset. "Just one lousy hit . . ."

Finishing off the rest of his food, Jumba asked, "How long have you been in?"

"Three and a half years so far," Eely answered. "But I'm a gossiper, so I know just about everyone's story round here." She smirked and pointed across the compound. "See that piece of work over there?"

Jumba followed the direction of her finger to where the big Grenarian was working away at his rations in an almost mechanical manner. "I was working next to him earlier today," the scientist commented, nodding.

It was Eely's turn to raise her brow. "Oh yer? Well, he's in for at least thirty. Serial rapist."

Had he still been eating, Jumba would have choked. "Really?"

She nodded. "Yer, and word round the place is that half of his victims bled to death."

Jumba didn't find that at all hard to believe, but it did not make him feel any less ill as he studied the four arms, each of which ended in a sharp double pincer like a lobster claw.

He opened his mouth to say something, but the klaxon blared again, announcing the end of their break.

Eely rose to her feet and picked up her tray. "See you, then," she said, then disappeared into the crowd.

Jumba got to his feet, his still-tired muscles aching in protest, and returned his own tray to the rationing counter. He then headed back to the work site where he picked up his shovel to finish out the rest of his working day.

The hours and the sunrises and sunsets that passed felt somehow surreal as he could almost physically feel the presence of the alleged rapist Grenarian beside him. It made him suddenly and very uncomfortably aware of the stifling presence of criminality surrounding him, sweating with him, breathing the same air. The sun weighed him down like irons. When night came, the stars turned above him like so many blinking eyes, with their blazing cold stares from behind the synthetic lamps. For all his proclamations of evil and knowing that he was as much a criminal as the rest of them, Jumba felt his heart clenching at the thought, or even the hope, that he might somehow be disassociated from the collective of villainy. For the entire span of his life, he had never honestly wanted to belong to any group, and now, more than ever, he wished to be distanced from this hot, stinking mire of depravity, if not by planets and stretches of space, then by his own conscience.

A handful of hours later and several billion kilometres away, the stars had fledged out over Kauai. In the sitting room of the Pelekai house, a freshly laundered and folded set of bedsheets and pillows lay on coffee table and Pleakley was on the sofa, watching the evening rerun of_ Saddled With Love_ to pass the time while he waited for the knock on the door.

At 11.08 pm, the knock came and Pleakley leapt up to unlock the door. In staggered four hundred pounds of aching and utterly spent evil genius. Pleakley didn't delay him with small talk, but let him proceed straight to the shower, then went about spreading the sheets over the sofa and warming the kettle.

When Jumba came back, still damp from the shower and dressed in comfortable pyjamas, Pleakley was fluffing the pillows for him. After twelve hours of blistering hard labour, Jumba lacked the energy to climb up to his bunk and preferred to simply crash on the sofa for the night. He was limping slightly. Pleakley wordlessly pulled the sheets down for him, then up again after Jumba had settled down, hissing at the ache in his back and limbs.

The next thing he knew, the Plorginarian was proffering a cup of hot camomile tea and the remote. Jumba accepted both, switching on "The Bastard Squad" at a low volume and sitting up a bit so that he could sip the tea. After three long sips, it was gone from the cup and spreading soothing warmth throughout the scientist's sore, tired body.

He lay back on his side and the screen grew blurry as his eyelids began shuddering closed. Vaguely, he registered the dip in the cushions beside him as they sank a bit beneath Pleakley's slight weight. He closed his eyes on the world, and bright blinks of memories from the day bloomed like flames on the backs of his eyelids . . . A face, a spoken word, a revelation, a sudden impulse to ask Pleakley if he had ever heard of anyone by the name of Ixflay . . .

Then, as suddenly as they'd begun, the sun-stained images flew from his mind as the little, three-fingered hand so like the one he'd shook earlier that day gently stroked the side of his face. The barely audible sounds of mayhem and violence from the television grew quieter still as the Plorginarian leaned in and kissed him softly on the cheek before getting up to leave. The cushion resumed its shape and the small spot felt still and lonely beside him.

Too tired even to lift an arm and reach out into the darkening void sprawling before him, Jumba expelled the day's pain and hardship in a single heavy sigh and slept.

End.


End file.
